Surgical stapling devices are employed by surgeons to sequentially or simultaneously apply one or more rows of fasteners, e.g., staples or two-part fasteners, to body tissue for the purpose of joining segments of body tissue together. Such devices generally consist of a pair of jaws or finger-like structures between which the body tissue to be joined is placed. When the stapling device is actuated, or “fired”, a firing member or members contact staple drive members in one of the jaws. The staple drive members push the surgical staples through the body tissue and into an anvil in an opposite jaw which crimps the staples closed. If tissue is to be removed or separated, a knife blade can be provided in the jaws of the device to cut the tissue between the lines of staples.
When stapling relatively thin diseased, or fragile tissues, a buttress may be used to seal the staple line against air or fluid leakage. Additionally, a buttress may be used to reinforce the staple line against the tissue to prevent tears in the tissue or pulling of the staples through the tissue. A layer of buttress material is placed against the tissue and the tissue is stapled in conventional manner. It is known to position the buttress material on the stapling instrument itself prior to stapling the tissue. An exemplary example of this is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,542,594 to McKean et al. In McKean et al. the buttress material is slipped over the jaw of the stapler. The stapler is then actuated to staple the subject tissue and secure the buttress material between the tissue and staple line to reinforce the tissue and staple line.
It would be desirable to provide a system of attaching a limited amount of buttress material to a surgical instrument such that the material is localized on the jaws of the surgical instrument. It would also be desirable to provide a system of attaching buttress material to a surgical instrument that facilitates the release of the buttress material from the surgical instrument. Additionally, while the method disclosed in McKean is useful for open surgical procedures, it would be desirable to provide a system of attaching buttress material to the jaws of an endoscopic instrument. It would further be desirable to provide a system of attaching buttress material to the anvil and staple containing head of a circular surgical stapling instrument.